Environmental job market expanding

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Since graduating from B.C.'s Royal Roads University's environmental science program in 1999, David Oswald has designed an exhibit on alternative energy for Expo 2000 and was the content director for Crown Prince Sultan's Science and Technology Centre in Saudi Arabia, where he helped create experiences that communicated the core principles behind environmental science and technology.

Through his company, DE Design and Environment in Montreal, he is consulting with Irving Oil on its greenhouse gas trading strategy, as well as with former prime minister Joe Clark, who is working on a sustainable development project training people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to cultivate forests that can be used for medicinal plant production.

"My job here is to consult on the carbon strategy, because they can make money from the carbon sequestered from the atmosphere by the forests," Oswald says. "At the same time, they want to communicate that to a broader audience. So we are talking about doing an exhibit about forests, ecosystems and carbon in the tropics and the implications for climate change. That's a perfect example of how I work as a designer and an environmental scientist on a specific application."

"We are the thread that links almost every industry sector in the Canadian economy, because almost every organization has environmental considerations," he says.

Traditional environmental roles -- scientists, engineers and technicians -- are tied to the concept of environmental protection: dealing with issues around waste management, water quality, air quality and land (all growth areas). But an increasing number of people are employed in sectors of the economy that are not considered environmental but have an environmental interest.

"The environmental job market is wide open and growing," says Kathleen Lyons, Boston-based employment and training specialist and editor of Green Job Idea Blog. "Employment in renewable energy, waste-water treatment, forestry and natural resources will grow, but so will adjunct areas such as finance, hospitality, building, skilled trades. In any industry there is an environmental twist. There is a green cast; a new view of the whole work environment. It's a paradigm shift."

In 2007, environmental employment grew 20 per cent faster than employment in the general Canadian economy. While that has dropped slightly as a result of the downturn, there is still a strong requirement for environmental people, according to Trump.

"We are not recession-proof, but we are recession resistant. People are keeping their jobs and we are seeing a 20 per cent to 30 per cent increase in admission requests at colleges and universities for their environmental programming."

From where he sits, Trump sees a new economic landscape coming out of the downturn and sustainability is a big part of it. "Sustainable development goes beyond conservation, alternative and renewable energies and the effects of greenhouse gas emissions," he says. "Environmental sustainability includes communications of risk, public consultations to make certain people are aware, and that brings in a whole variety of new people beyond those with technical ability. It brings in more of the humanities and social science folks. One can see how this is a web that can spread to all sectors of the Canadian economy."

That's why Toronto's Ryerson University is launching a sustainability certificate in the fall as part of its continuing education offering. "If you are going to be ready for the new economy, the economy of innovation, you are going to have to have skills and knowledge around how to tackle problems with a sustainability point of view," says Peter Monkhouse, program director engineering, architecture and science at the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University.

"Whether you are an engineer designing wind turbines, an accountant or a procurement manager assessing the supply chain, sustainability is going to impact every profession in almost every job because they are going to have this layer of knowledge they typically don't have today."

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GREEN-COLLAR STATISTICS

Education

College programs: 153

University programs: 239

Average base salary

Natural resources: $66,100

Architecture, engineering & related: $62,200

Public service: $61,300

Construction, manufacturing & utilities: $60,600

Waste management: $58,800

Environmental consulting: $58,000

Service industry: $55,900

Projections across Canada

- 65 per cent of employers in the environmental sector are expecting to expand in the next two years